Amy, My Daughter (29 page)

Photographic Insert

My mum and dad, Cynthia and Alec, in their flat in Rectory Road, Stoke Newington, 1953. Amy never met Pop Alec as he died long before she was born. She felt she knew him from my stories, though, and his style certainly played a part in her love of retro.

Me aged six with my mum. Amy loved my mum as much as I did. We spent many hours listening to jazz together – a habit she later repeated with Amy.

Janis and I were engaged in 1975. Who does she remind you of?

A proud dad and his darling daughter. I'd probably just woken her up on coming home from work, much to Janis's irritation.

Amy was a delightful baby, always smiling and happy, but when she wasn't we all knew about it. We took her abroad from an early age where she immediately loved the beach.

Amy with her most adoring fan, my mum.

Amy in Spain, aged three. Everything she wore had to be pink.

Bath time for the kids was a tangle of limbs and always a soaking wet floor.

Some of Amy's drawings from school: Amy with her friends Juliette and Gemma. Why she didn't use the correct colour for her own hair, I don't know. I've always liked her schoolgirl habit of using hearts to dot her i's.

My lovely two: Alex and Amy, in their Osidge Primary school uniforms. Alex always looked after his baby sister.

The precocious talent that was my daughter. Never happier than when she was performing. 1988 at our home in Osidge Lane, Southgate.